Possessives and articles

Question

I know that in Spanish, with possessives, it is possible to say "el mío" and "la mía." But is it ever grammatical to say, as you can in Italian, something like, "la escuela mía"?

Welcome to SpanishDict, Jlacks. - rac1, Jul 8, 2017

Answer 1

The Spanish Dictionary article on long form possessive adjectives does not mention any prohibition regarding the use of a definite article before the noun and a possessive adjective following it. It also shows three sentences in a row that contain this combination.

Determine, Then Possess
Notice that the definite articles el, la, los, and las are used to determine the noun while the long-form possessive adjective comes later.
¿Dónde están los zapatos tuyos? (Where are your shoes?)
Las reservaciones vuestras son a las ocho. (Your reservations are at 8:00.)
Esta es mi silla y aquel es la silla tuya. (This is my chair and that one is yours.)

It was my understanding that certain nouns such as escuela and iglesia almost always require the definitive article, so I don't know why "la escuela mía" would be wrong.

Good to know. Thanks Ken :) I kept thinking how "That son of mine" works in English, but "That my son" doesn't. Similar in Spanish it seems. - jellonz, Jul 9, 2017

Answer 2

In Italian you say "la mia scuola". In Spanish you can say " la mía " or "el mío", "las mías" or "los míos". "La escuela mía" or similar expressions are not so commonly heard and never "la mi(a) escuela) except in some poem but very, very, very seldom.
In normal life nobody uses it.

Answer 3

The short answer is yes, but in your example it would be escuela mía. Here is the link to the SD article that discusses this

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Answer 4

You can use "mío/a" as long form adjectives, similar to "mi" except they follow the noun and are used perhaps in a more poetic way than the short form "mi". I think as a rule of thumb if you were going to say something like "Son of mine" instead of "My son" then you could use "Hijo mío" instead of "Mi hijo."

The only issue there could be with your "la escuela mía" example is the use of the definite article. It would be kind of like saying "the my school." Perhaps, considering it instead as "the school of mine" there could be a circumstance where it may be acceptable, but a native speaker or someone more advanced than me would have to comment

I would say "mi escuela" in most of the cases. I would like to see a complete sentence to decide if "la escuela mía" is better. - 00fac92a, Jul 8, 2017

Agreed Guillermo. I couldn't think of an example where the definite article would work. Perhaps contextually one could be created but even if so I'd say it would be very uncommon. - jellonz, Jul 8, 2017

Woops. On my cell and the words are tiny so I misread your comment Guillermo. I still agree with you re the mi but i think the mia use is fine, if uncommon. My major issue would be with the la. - jellonz, Jul 8, 2017